Bearclaw Valley some kind of soul come from within us

understanding nothing of the predicament she found herself in vis-a-vis her coupling with @Merrick, astara found the last week of her pregnancy nearly unbearable.

even her bear was often turned away with a show of teeth.

@Averna was the only wolf she tolerated in her presence now; she often paced and whined before relmyna's cairn, staring uneasily into the thousand notches in relmyna's hip before some foul humor would descend upon her and send her marching back to her den.

discomfited, astara languished in the hollow she had clawed out herself in tumbleview's hearth. here she stayed in wait, a lurking trapdoor spider -- often offering nothing but a furious emergence and snapping teeth at any passerby, followed quickly by her retreat back into the blackened depths of her lair.

The woes of the mortal body did not mean much to the priest, who turned away the complaints of her dark counterpart without so much as a word. However, beside the mortal discomforts that she felt there was something else that was going on; an energy from her womb, a sign that there would be small ones brought onto this world. This meant that Thief needed more care right now, and though the priest felt that her counterpart could take excellent care of herself there were other matters that needed caring for. The occasional catch could be done by the Bear, but when it came to matters of the occult the priest did not trust others nearly as much as herself. Arrogant, perhaps, but experience taught her it was the truth.

The wounded hare struggled between her teeth as the priest carried it deeper into the tumbleview. She needed its beating heart and its warm blood for the ritual, so she could not kill it yet. The scent of blood filled her nostrils, making it hard to follow her nose. Luckily, all she needed to do was follow her other senses and locate the source of pending new life.

If you want it to stay read only, DM me and I can change this to make it read only too. I didn't see it was RO until after typing half of this post.

opened it! <3

within astara a new life was brewing -- not the life of her children, but her second life -- an spiritual presence that for all of her scrying with relmyna's bones, astara had never witnessed before. more than once she felt the ripple of something nearby -- only to find nothing when she emerged bristling from the den.

another sound roused her, accompanied by the scent of blood. furious to find her privacy violated, astara sprung from the mouth of her den like a hyena -- only to find the svelte form of her sibling towing a hare.

it took time for the hairs on her back to settle -- and longer still, for the crackling energy around her to dissipate -- but astara accepted averna's presence with a wave of her tail, making to turn back for her dark abode.

The scent of blood was all-consuming, putting the priest in the exact right mood for the ritual she was to perform. The hare squirmed beneath her grasp and its high pitched shrieking was deafening -- not in the real world, but mostly in the priest's. At first her counterpart's reaction was aggressive, clearly pained by what was happening to her, but the priest had no time to spare on her. She drifted closer elegantly and slowly, without looking to see that the dark Blackfeather wolf's ruffled feathers slowly smoothed.

There was something ceremonial about the way she moved closer. She put down the hare and pressed a paw down on its body while it shrieked; for mercy, for salvation, for an ending.

Astara Melonii.

It was the first time in her entire life that the priest had named Thief anything other than a nickname. She did not attach much value to names, it would appear; the priest never used her own name, either. But perhaps it was not because she did not value names that caused her to stay away from, but because they were a prized good that she kept close to her chest.

If Astara continued back towards her den then the priest would follow, but her foreboding and commanding pale gaze demanded Astara to stay here and undergo the ritual that she had begun.

with every intention of turning back to the den, astara found her movements slowed as she looked upon her sister. there was something captivating about the way averna moved then, as if possessed of some invisible spirit.

recognizing the command in that silvervoid gaze, astara reluctantly resurfaced. she looked curiously to the hare but as was customary, said nothing -- all around averna she could sense an immense and powerful purpose that urged her to stay and be silent.

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Upon her word, the dark one stood still and looked back upon the pale whisp, Averna. It was no surprise that she would remain quiet. The use of her name must feel foreign and was uncharacteristic of Averna -- she had never used her own name, though she knew it from reference by the wolves of the woods, and she had never used Thief's name either, not before now -- but that was because the names meant something more than simply a moniker to call another by. It was a spiritual thing for her, and only now she could possibly truly come near posessing what being Averna was truly like.

The silence might have seemed harmonious in some way if not for the squalling of the hare beneath her foot.

Averna moved her head down and she started to whisper in tongues. Astara might remember some of them from back in the Blackfeather Woods. Whispers of their gods and their spirits, whispers that Averna had heard her entire life and only sometimes spoken aloud by the other wolves. She hung ominously over the hare's head for some time as she whispered these, almost as if she was telling it a secret, though the words were too loud to be only for the creature's ears. Then she dug into its flesh and after the screams intensified for a few loud seconds they fell deaf abruptly as she tore out its chest and with that, its heart. Eat, the priest commanded her sister as she lay the warm heart before her.

Then she took the remains of the bleeding out rabbit and moved in a fluent motion towards Astara. Averna started to smear the blood across her sibling's stomach in some pattern -- one might decipher a spider, vaguely, though wolves not from the Blackfeather woods might not make it out in its roughness and the darkness of the blood on Astara's midnight fur -- while she continued to murmur words, and made sure that Astara did as commanded while she did this.

how strange a name appeared -- particularly when it was rarely spoken.

astara watched in riveted silence, the only movement of her frame when averna's chanting intermingled with the piercing screams of the hare.

it was over shortly; her fur was on end as averna glided forth, procuring the bloodied hare for her to eat. wordless, she took the offering in her jaws and ate of its flesh, unmoving as averna painted crude drawings to her flank.

all the while, the whispers of the void seemed to grow louder.

Ears filled with their whispers and eyes feeling as though they were blackened and filled with their desires. She could not withhold a laugh at times, one filled with some sort of madness. She felt as though overtaken by them -- by what she did not know for sure -- something -- something that called to her and something that would bless these children and make sure that they would live good lives in service to things, just as they both had.

Sithis, she spoke, a word that did not often cross her lips, perhaps because her worship was often much more abstract and she listened to all those who pulled, not just the one deity above it all, not just the void. But powerful blessings required powerful beings, now. Pale eyes dancing with madness, with fulfilment, as she painted Astara's belly red, as they were just Astara and Averna for but a mere moment. Sithis, bless these spiderlings and care as though they were your own. Make sure they hear the whispers, she thought to herself, for a life without spirits seemed dull and meaningless to her. She saw it all around her, all the time, in all of the wolves' vacant expressions. Let them live better lives than that.

Never before had she felt so powerful. It was maddening, exhilarating, engulfing.

a transformation overtook averna; astara had seen it before, but never up close. how magnificently terrible her fleshbound sister appeared, wrought by the infernal tongues of a thousand whispering daemons.

astara would never know such divinity. for each footstep her sister took into the void, she took one on the mortal plane -- her mind was simply not crafted for such endeavor, or perhaps, like many mortals, the gods simply did not favor her.

how bittersweet the garland of blood was that painted her abdomen; how she wished her children to be born in the light, but understand the dark -- so that their lives would be long and full of strength.

Driven by a deep primordial instinct, Averna took step after step as she painted in the blood, bathed in it -- for her white fur was quick to dirty -- and felt the madness and darkness of Sithid completely engulf her.

The ritual was completed as soon as it had started, it seemed, for as soon as it was done, the whispers surrounding her stilled and she felt much more like the priest that she was and much less like Averna that was hidden inside of her, as if that was her true name and it must never be spoken to her, unless ordained so by the gods themselves. It was indescribable, the way she felt, the power she felt, and she knew that Astara's children would be blessed -- these spiderlings would be blessed.

The priest licked her crimson-smeared lips and looked at her dark counterpart, sharing a short moment of silence with her sister before vanishing into the night to cleanse herself.

astara was a beast consumed by jealousy.

she was jealous of merrick; of his natural beauty, of his beastliness -- of the gods that spoke to him.

she was jealous too, of her sister: of how she had one foot seemingly in the netherworld. of her silver gossamer fur. of how starkly the blood clung to her coat -- how beautiful, how savage -- how much she wanted to be white in that moment, and bask alongside averna as a godsayer and not the simpering idiot she was --

averna's chanting had ended during astara's envious ruminations. by the time she recovered, she noticed her ghostly sister was gone.

for a moment astara sat with her swollen belly in the clearing, and hoped her spiderlings would sow nothing but hate in this world.